If You Ever Tell

by Carlene Thompson

  Teresa immediately regretted having said anything to him except that the lesson had gone well. He should have heard what happened from either Daniel or Sharon, not from her. She wanted to smooth things over a bit. “Kent, we both know Sharon wasn’t crazy about the idea of riding lessons. Then, after half an hour, I heard that the mother of one of my other students canceled—probably for good—and I made a ridiculously big deal over it. Anyway, I’m certain I gave Sharon a reason to think she should take Daniel home.”

  “And was he happy to be taken home early?” Kent asked sarcastically.

  “Daniel had a good time while he was here, and as I said, maybe half an hour was enough time for him. You ride, so you know if you’re not used to it and you stay on the horse too long, particularly if it’s your first time on a horse, you can strain muscles and—”

  “Don’t evade my question, Teri. How did he act when Sharon took him home?”

  “He wasn’t happy.”

  “Define ‘wasn’t happy.’”

  Teri felt cornered. “He cried,” she admitted, and her brother swore under his breath. “But even if he’d stayed longer, he probably would have cried when it was time to go home. He just loves the pony, Kent. And he was all dressed up. I think he had plans to stay the whole day and thought he could charm Sharon into letting him. This is really nothing to get mad about, Kent. Sharon knows her child. She knows what’s best for him,” Teresa ended unconvincingly.

  “You don’t have to sugarcoat how Sharon acted, Teri. I’ll be having a talk with her about this as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, Kent, don’t overreact about today’s lesson. I know she needs to lighten up about the riding lessons, but give her some time. Riding can be dangerous. Sharon just hasn’t seen how particularly careful Josh and Gus are with children.”

  “I’m mad about more than her worrying over riding lessons. This hoopla she’s creating over the lessons is part of a problem that’s been brewing between Sharon and me for months, and it’s time I finally had it out with her.”

  “What problem?” Teri couldn’t help asking.

  Kent hung up with a bang and Teresa’s mood sank even lower. Certainly Kent needed to talk to Sharon about her possessiveness of Daniel, but not when he was angry. She knew they would have an argument tonight and it would be Teri’s fault for stirring up his emotions. If there was one thing a couple having problems did not need, it was a meddling relative—

  The phone rang again and when Teresa looked at Caller ID and saw the call was coming from the barn, she felt like not answering. More trouble with Sharon probably, she thought. Dread filling her mind like a dark cloud, Teresa picked up the phone and said, “What’s the problem, Gus?”

  “Oh, no problem!” Teri instantly recognized his falsely cheerful tone. “Just wanted to let you know you have a couple of unexpected visitors.”

  Teresa waited a moment, fully expecting him to say, The sheriff and his deputy are here to question you about the night of the murders. She heard voices, one sounding like a young woman’s; then came the overly loud laugh Gus used to mask surprise or dismay. Finally, a notch below yelling, Teresa demanded, “Gus, who the hell is at the barn?”

  “Well, you’ll never guess,” Gus boomed. “It’s Jason Warner and his little girl. Miss Farr, Celeste Warner’s come to see you!”

  2

  Celeste!

  Teresa stood speechless, her mouth slightly open. Since the murders, not one day had gone by that she hadn’t thought of the lovely child with large, sad blue eyes who Wendy had dragged into the Farr home after her triumphant marriage to Hugh.

  At first, Teresa had decided to be nothing more than polite to the girl. Then Teresa had noticed how Celeste crept around the house as if she was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, how she’d avoided her new stepfather, and how she often simply sat on the floor of her suffocatingly frilled and ruffled bedroom holding her large teddy bear and chanting childish rhymes of her own creation.

  One day Teresa had heard Celeste pouring out her loneliness and unhappiness to the teddy bear, Yogi, who seemed to be her only friend. Touched, Teresa had entered Celeste’s room and tried to talk to her, but the child had been too timid or too wary of her new stepsister to answer. After several more tries, though, Celeste had begun to talk more, and within a month she and Teresa regularly played and giggled together like contemporaries. Soon, Teri realized she’d come to love the child as much as if she’d been Marielle’s child instead of Wendy’s.

  Then, after the murders, a seriously wounded Celeste had been wrenched away from Teri. She’d thought she’d never see the girl again, but at last, unbelievably, Celeste had come to see her. She was down in the barn as if she were a regular visitor, not the child so many people once thought Teresa had tried to murder.

  After a moment of stunned silence, Teresa said, “Tell Celeste and her father to come up to the house. No! Celeste will want to see the horses, so I’ll come down to the barn first.”

  “You’re right,” Gus said jovially. “She’s near hypnotized by Eclipse. She said she wanted to meet your horse before any of the others. Well, see you in a few minutes!”

  Teresa dashed into the living room, glanced at herself in a mirror hanging above a long bookcase, smoothed her hair, and tucked her blouse into her jeans. Then she looked at Sierra waiting expectantly by the door. The dog was boisterous when meeting new people, but Celeste had loved dogs almost as much as she’d loved horses. Teresa decided to take a chance that Sierra wouldn’t frighten the girl and clipped on the dog’s leash.

  They hurried down the slope from Teresa’s house, and as they reached the open barn doors Teresa heard the murmur of voices. With her sharp hearing, Sierra immediately recognized that some were unfamiliar, and she barked loudly. “Hush,” Teresa commanded. “Celeste doesn’t know you. Don’t scare her.”

  Actually, Teresa felt a tingle of uneasiness at seeing Celeste. They had been so close, but that closeness had been eight years ago when Celeste was just a child. She was a teenager now, and she’d been through hell. In the years since Teresa had come back from college, she’d never once seen Celeste. The small bits of reliable information Teresa had been able to glean about Celeste, though, let her know that in spite of the girl’s silence, she did not suffer from any organic mental damage. The silence was merely the result of shock. Still, before the ambulance arrived to bear away the seriously injured child, one of the last people Celeste had seen eight years ago in that house of carnage had been Teresa.

  As soon as she walked into the barn, though, a slender girl turned away from Eclipse, looked at Teresa and Sierra for a moment, then smiled and ran forward. “Teri! Oh, Teri, how much I’ve missed you!” Celeste exclaimed joyfully, flinging herself into Teresa’s opened arms. They hugged fiercely for a moment. Then the girl stepped back. “You look just the same!”

  “You certainly don’t!” Teresa smiled as her gaze moved quickly over Celeste, whom she judged to be about five foot five. She had her mother’s pale blond hair color, but otherwise she looked nothing like Wendy, who with youth, attractive clothes, and plenty of makeup still only achieved a sexy, piquant prettiness. Celeste was a true beauty with flawless ivory skin, large cornflower blue eyes with long, dark lashes, a narrow nose, and perfectly molded lips of a natural rosy hue. She wore a dated, almost childish pink dress, which Teresa immediately guessed had been made by Celeste’s grandmother Fay. Celeste’s long hair was held back with a pink velvet ribbon, and not a trace of makeup appeared on her face. “Celeste, you were a beautiful child,” Teresa said sincerely, “but you’re an even more beautiful young lady.”

  Celeste hugged her again. Sierra let out another strident bark and Teresa was glad for the diversion, because she felt tears rising in her eyes. “Celeste, this is Sierra,” she said briskly. “She makes a lot of noise, but she’s never bitten anyone. I hope you’re not afraid—”

  But Celeste was already kneeling, rubbing Sierra under her big pointed ears as the dog�
�s tail flew back and forth in delight. “I’m not afraid of her. I could tell the minute I saw her she’s a good dog,” Celeste said happily, then bent and spoke directly into Sierra’s face. “A good, friendly, pretty dog, isn’t that right, Sierra?” The dog licked her on the nose and Celeste giggled.

  “I hope you don’t mind that we just dropped in unannounced.” Jason Warner approached Teresa, holding out his hand. When Teri had last seen him, he’d been a youthful-looking thirty-two. Now, at forty, gray heavily laced his light brown hair and the wrinkles in his forehead looked as if they belonged to a man of fifty. He was still lean and looked strong, as if he’d worked at keeping himself in shape, and his smile was warm.

  “After Celeste surprised us all when she started talking again—” Jason broke off, his smile wavering as if emotion were about to overtake him. He swallowed and finished in a rush. “She was determined to come and see you as soon as possible. Her grandmother was… busy.”

  I’ll bet, Teri thought. Fay Warner had been convinced Teresa had stabbed Celeste, and even after Byrnes’s statement that he’d killed the Farrs, she’d still turned her head away whenever she’d passed Teresa downtown or in the grocery store.

  “So Celeste called me at the office,” Jason went on, “and I decided to take an early lunch. It was all very spur-of-the-moment. I did call, but your line was busy.”

  “I was on the phone,” Teresa said unnecessarily, then added, “but it’s fine. I’m thrilled to see Celeste. I’m glad to see both of you.”

  Jason smiled again, but he was saved from answering by Celeste, who’d darted over to the palomino. “What’s his name?” she asked.

  “Conquistador.” Teresa joined Celeste and they both stroked the horse. “He belongs to my brother, Kent. I’m just boarding some of these horses, but the black Arabian, Eclipse, and the two ponies, Caesar and Cleopatra, are mine.”

  Celeste went to each stall, meeting and petting Captain Jack, Sir Lancelot, Bonaparte, and the most recent addition, another quarter horse named Fantasia. As she talked to both Teresa and the horses, Teri noticed that Celeste’s speech sounded much younger than that of other teenagers who took lessons at Farr Fields. Teri guessed that during the last few years, Celeste had not interacted in a normal, social way with people her own age and therefore spoke and acted younger than sixteen.

  “Gosh, you must be the happiest girl in the world to get to live with all these horses,” Celeste told Teresa after she’d given ample attention to each horse. “I love horses. Teri, where’s your horse you kept at the other stables? The one you let me ride a long time ago.”

  “I’m afraid he died a couple of years ago.” Celeste’s smile immediately faded. “But he was old, Celeste, and he’d had a very good life. Of course I miss him, but he died suddenly and the vet said probably without pain. I guess it was just his time to go.”

  “Oh,” Celeste said tremulously. “Then he didn’t get hurt or killed or anything.”

  He didn’t get killed, Teresa thought. He didn’t get killed like her mother and Hugh. “No, nothing like that,” Teresa reassured the girl fervently. “He wasn’t even sick before he died. He just acted tired. Then he lay down one day and didn’t get up. He’s buried here on my farm. There’s a beautiful flowering crabapple tree overhanging his grave and he has a headstone. I put flowers on his grave every August seventh, his birthday.”

  Celeste still looked heartbroken. “I know everybody has to die sometime, but I don’t like it. Still, it’s nice that you to put flowers on his grave. Could I help you this year?”

  Teresa glanced at Jason, who nodded. “Of course, Celeste. He’d appreciate that.”

  Celeste turned to Gus and to Josh, who were both trying to look busy while they watched the tenuous encounter between Teresa and Celeste. “Don’t you wish horses could live forever?”

  Gus looked startled but answered immediately, “Why, we sure do, don’t we, Josh?”

  Josh obediently nodded. “Yeah. Forever. But they have long lives compared to—” Teresa knew he was about to say “dogs,” then caught himself and said, “Some other animals.”

  “I know.” Celeste paused and stared into the distance for a moment. Abruptly she asked, “Teri, do you remember Snowflake?”

  Teresa stiffened at the mention of the night-light left at her door by a hooded figure just last night. She tried to relax and smile casually. “Of course I do.”

  “I wish I still had Snowflake,” Celeste said wistfully. “Snowflake and my teddy bear Yogi were full of good luck. Snowflake’s light showed me where my toy chest was—the toy chest I hid in the night when Mommy got killed. Yogi helped, too. The doctor said I would’ve been killed if the knife hadn’t gone into him first so it couldn’t go all the way into me. But Yogi’s gone for good. He got thrown in the trash.”

  A wave of sadness shadowed Celeste’s face and Teresa said, “I’m sorry about Yogi, but he would have been glad he saved your life.”

  “That’s what Daddy says.” Suddenly, Celeste looked at Teresa fiercely. “I hope Snowflake isn’t gone forever, though. We really need Snowflake for good luck now.”

  “Oh?” Teresa was taken aback by the girl’s unexpected vehemence. “Why do we especially need good luck now?”

  Celeste stepped closer to Teresa, her blue eyes huge in her pale face, and said intensely, “’cause what killed Mommy wanted to kill me. It didn’t because of you, but it still wants to kill me, and I know it wants to kill you, too.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  1

  EVERYONE IN THE BARN seemed to freeze at the sound of Celeste’s pronouncement. Although Teresa merely stared at the girl, her mind churned with questions. Who? Why? How do you know? But she didn’t trust herself to open her mouth. The questions would come out loud and shrill and terrified.

  Jason finally broke the silence, walking toward his daughter and putting his arm around her tense, slender shoulders. “Sweetheart, that’s a very dramatic and scary thing to say. Is it what you think?”

  “It’s what I know,” Celeste said definitely.

  Jason asked calmly, “And how do you know such a thing?”

  “Death wanted to kill me before but didn’t get me because of Yogi and Snowflake. And because of Teri. I know some people think Teri tried to kill me—people said all kinds of things around me because they thought I couldn’t hear just because I didn’t talk—but Teri didn’t stab me. That’s silly. Teri kept Death away from me. So now Death is mad and wants Teri to die, too. It just makes sense.”

  Finally Teresa spoke. “Honey, a person stabbed you and maybe the person isn’t around anymore. Maybe it was just a stranger who got into the house that night or someone who was afraid of getting caught and ran away or…”

  Teresa ran out of words as Celeste shook her head violently. “No, Death is still here. I know because of a smell and a sound and something about a face. It’s still sort of jumbled, but I’ll remember it better in a few days. I know I will.

  “Anyway, I didn’t talk for so long because I just didn’t want to talk about that night. Everybody kept asking me about that night and I didn’t want to think about it. But I started talking again when I knew Death was here. At first I was mad at myself for talking. Then I was glad because I had to warn you to be real careful and I had to tell everyone who wants us to stay alive so they can help us.” Celeste looked at her father, then whirled and looked at Gus and Josh. “You have to protect Teri or Death’s gonna kill her!”

  Shaken to the depths of her being, Teresa tried to assure Celeste that she would be as careful as possible. Ten minutes later, she bade the girl and her father a pleasant good-bye when Jason—white-faced and taut—said he must get back to the office. After they left, Gus looked unsettled and asked Teresa if she was being threatened or had reason to be afraid. She lied, telling him everything was well with her, which she could tell he didn’t believe. Before he could ask more questions, though, Teresa fled back to her house, Sierra running along beside her, then running
circles around her, trying and failing to draw her mistress into an exciting game of chase.

  When they got in the house, Teresa closed the front door firmly behind her, locked it, then went into the kitchen and gave Sierra a fresh bowl of water and fixed herself a tall glass of lemonade. She then meandered back into the living room, flopped down on the couch, and moaned, “Can this day get any worse?”

  She quickly learned that it could.

  Teresa hadn’t even finished her lemonade when the phone rang again. Reluctantly, she rose from the couch and picked up the handset from the receiver next to a wing chair. Before she could say a word, Sharon asked caustically, “Well, proud of yourself?”

  “What?” Teresa asked. “Proud of what?”

  “Of tattling, of meddling, of generally causing as much trouble as you could between my husband and me?”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t do what? Get right on the hot line to tell Kent I’d taken Daniel away from his lesson early? Whine and moan and make him mad that your half-crazy sister-in-law had hurt your feelings?”

  “Sharon, I swear that is not what I meant to do. You know me better than that!”

  “Oh, do I? Let’s see what I know about you. I know that you’ve always leaned on your big brother, even when you were a teenager, causing trouble at home and then expecting Kent to take your side against Hugh for you, which he did, making Hugh hate Kent as much as he hated you.”

  A flame of anger was beginning to lick its way through Teresa. “I don’t know that my father actually hated me or Kent, but if he did, it wasn’t because Kent took up for me sometimes. It’s because my father didn’t know how to love anyone. He only knew coercion and intimidation.”

  “He loved Wendy.”

  “Oh, he did not and you know it! Sharon, what is wrong with you? Are you so mad at me for telling your husband you left the lesson early that you can’t even look at the past with clear vision, now? Wendy was a sexy toy for Dad—someone to make him feel young and manly. And poor little Celeste meant nothing to him. My mother meant nothing to him.”